STRANGE MARINE CREATURES. 227 



variety of phase, and often by the uncouthness of form, 

 under which some of the meaner creatures are presented 

 to us. And this is very specially the case with the 

 inhabitants of the sea. We can scarcely poke and pry 

 for an hour among the rpcks at low-water mark, or 

 walk with an observant downcast eye along the beach 

 after a gale, without finding some oddly-fashioned, 

 suspicious-looking being, unlike any form of life that 

 we have seen before. The dark, concealed interior of 

 the sea becomes thus invested with a fresh mystery; its 

 vast recesses appear to be stored with all imaginable 

 forms, and we are tempted to think there must be 

 multitudes of living creatures whose very figure and 

 structure have never yet been suspected. 



" Sea ! oW Sea ! who yet knows half 

 Of thy wonders or thy pride ! ' ' 



Yet so full and close has been the attention with 

 which the naturalists of the last hundred years have 

 studied the forms and affinities of organic existence, 

 that all these strange beings find their place in the 

 arranged systems of Nature ; and it is rare indeed to 

 discover an animal or plant so diverse from those al- 

 ready familiar to us, that we are compelled to isolate 

 it, or even to express uncertainty as to its general 

 relations. 



Among the treasures sent me by Mr. Kingsley was 

 a specimen of the Rough Syrinx (Syrinx nudus), 

 called by Pennant the Tube Worm. I presume it 

 must be an unusually fine one of its kind, for, though 

 it was my first acquaintance with the strange creature, 

 and I therefore have no data for comparison derived 



